This is the story of The Mythical Mattress and it has a happy ending.

When we first moved to Belize, ten years ago, we bought a mattress. Not a super duper deluxe one by any stretch of the imagination but nonetheless it was fine enough. It was not great but what do you expect from a Chinese Munchkin on a budget?

Anyway, as the years went by in Belize, we started getting the farm into shape. Over these years, Gnome developed back pain partly because of his tall stature and also, because he is doing a lot of heavy lifting. He complained of twinges that lasted for a few days, went away for a few weeks and came back now and then. Early on, we did not put much emphasis on the matter since it never seemed to be a chronic, ongoing problem. However, probably in the last three years, Gnome has mentioned that the mattress had been exacerbating his back pain. In the last year, complaints have been of much greater frequency and fervour.

He was right, it was getting too old (a decade!) and it was sagging pathetically like a wet teabag. I finally got the message when Gnome started sleeping on a stack of duvets on the floor. At that point, I felt really guilty because I had ignored his pleas for a new mattress and had put other farm items on a higher priority purchase list.

Anyway, to make amends, I decided that I had to really go full out to buy the super, super duper deluxe model. Besides, I needed it to last so I naturally thought an expensive mattress would equate with quality and durability.I did my homework and read copiously on the subject of mattress types. After weeks and weeks of ploughing through forums, blogs and mattress web-sites, I was none the wiser. The opinions amounted to nothing because I found that for every mattress type there were people giving positive feedback and a similar percentage of people giving negative feedback.

I finally decided to purchase a memory foam mattress since this seemed to be the new innovation and there were enough rave reviews about them to offer me hope that Gnome might be relieved of his back problem. I wanted the best memory mattress that money could buy so I opted to bring one in from the States. Yes, I was prepared to pay for the shipping and duty for this blessed mattress to be delivered to Belize.

By that time, the idea of the mattress became much, much more…a promise.  A Mythical Mattress to put an end to all our sorrows and woes.  Perhaps even rid the world of war and famine…

Anyway, typically, time passed by in Belize and with shipping problems and freight delays, the mattress arrived 6 months from the date of purchase. I had ordered it in November 2014, hoping (stupidly) that it would be ready for Christmas. Meanwhile, Gnome was still sleeping badly on a stack of duvets on the floor. I slept on the saggy mattress feeling rather dejected; surprisingly, I could still get a good night’s sleep on it.

All that time, we built up the idea of The Mythical Mattress to enormous proportions.  It would take away all our pain and suffering.  Make us feel like spring chickens again.  Perhaps even make us look 10 years younger…ha-ha!

In April 2015, the Mighty Mattress, that would solve all our problems, arrived. It was vacuumed packed tightly in a bag so that it was easy to transport. When we got it home, the bag was removed and out sprung our super super duper memory foam mattress.

Did the Mythical Mattress change our lives?

It has been about three months since then and this is the verdict: I am now sleeping on the floor, on the duvets, suffering from back pain from the memory foam mattress. Gnome is on the bed, tossing and turning, having not been rewarded yet with a good night’s sleep. We really tried to give it a chance but sorry folks, it’s like sleeping on saggy thick foam with no support.  What a complete an utter Let Down!

So, why all the rave reviews? This new expensive mattress was worse that our 10 year old one. We went back to do research on the matter. After some reading, it donned us that memory mattresses are made of a specialised foam that requires specific temperatures (lowish at about 10 to 15 oC) in order to work optimally. We are in Belize, the Tropics, where our typical night time temperature is about 25 to 30oC!

The most likely reason why this mattress is giving us problems is because the environment is too hot.  I am not a memory mattress expert so I don’t know if there are “temperate” and “tropical” memory mattresses tailor-made according to the average temperature of that country. So there in lies the our problem…we bought a memory mattress from a temperate country.

This morning, we had both had enough of the whole Mattress Shenanigans. We had dark circles under our eyes and back pain.

We drove down to Courts in Punta Gorda, in silence, and bought a brand new mattress. We hardly said a word to each other…we just knew that we had to put an end all our suffering and misery in one quick swoop.

This afternoon, Gnome had a trial sleep. He came out of the bedroom after a while and said, with a big grin, “Ahhhh!! I felt support on my back…I didn’t get any pain…what a relief!”

Yes, what a relief.

Shucks…all this pain and agony over mattresses and we bought a brand new one today inside of fifteen minutes!!

No more Mythical Mattress.  This one is real!